Genius Stipend.

“Why do you think that so many white people love what you write?” asked the award-winning New York Times Magazine journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, during a sold-out discussion at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. And the predominantly black crowd—which included the performers Usher and Common—erupted in laughter.

Ta-Nehisi Coates was in the hot seat.
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Even Coates, who is not averse to his unlikely enthusiasts, admits the paradoxical nature of this white fan phenomenon. “I don’t know why white people read what I write,” Coates said. “I didn’t set out to accumulate a mass of white fans.”

And yet, a white Coates following certainly exists, in fact, this contingent is alive and well. They buy books. They tweet and retweet. And evidenced by Thursday’s event, they attend talks
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“[White privilege] I think is a word that we have created to make white people comfortable—while we talk about racism, and white supremacy, which is much more uncomfortable for folks because it names things and it’s very, very direct.”

Clearly Coates holds no punches. But he says he harbors no malice toward white people, and that he speaks to them from the heart. Coates even took a moment to articulate to the few white audience members that there was no bad blood. “I’m not mean, I don't call people names, I don’t personalize stuff,” said Coates.
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One friend who focuses on empowerment within the black community suggested that white people gravitate toward Coates because they tend to like one black intellectual at a time, and that intellectual’s narrative is that the plight of black people is caused by white negligence.
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"Who knows what the mentality is behind that [white people purchasing his book],” Coates said. “You’ll have to ask some white people, but from my perspective I try to give them [white people] the respect that they deserve, as readers.”

President Obama swept in many beneficiaries; people tend to promote people who look like themselves, they say, and as he has reminded us: Barack and Michelle have no son.

You just wonder, come 2017, does the phenomenon still work and are "white" readers still following? Or does the public move on to the newest thing?

If the latter, wouldn't it be best to create change while there is still time, with the money and the masses still there?


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*  "We speak in wounds. Behold this mess.
    My curse upon your politesse."